Can Pastors Be Friends with Church Members?

On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, discusses whether pastors can be friends with church members—and how to enjoy those friendships without crossing ministry boundaries. He looks at Jesus’ example, shares stories of lifelong ministry friends, and offers practical guardrails for handling information, time, and expectations so leaders can have real friends in their church without hurting their credibility or their people

Creators and Guests

Host

Jeff Iorg

President, SBC Executive Committee

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Jeff Iorg: 00:01

Welcome to the Lead On Podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, carrying on our continuing conversation about practical issues related to ministry leadership. Well, today on the podcast, I wanna talk about an issue that is sometimes troublesome particularly for church leaders, and that is the issue of maintaining friendships with church members. How close can you be friend to friend with people in your ministry organization, particularly in your church or in the particular organization where you may be working or leading? Is it possible even to maintain close friendships with church members?

Jeff Iorg: 00:49

And if it's possible, is it desirable? And if it's possible and desirable, are there some cautions we need to keep in place or some parameters, if you will, that we can erect that will help us to do this more effectively? So today, let's talk about maintaining friendships with church members, some of the reasons why that's good, and some of the challenges that we need to manage. The first thing I would say is, in answer to the question, is it possible and desirable to maintain friendships with church members or friendships with people in your organization? The answer is unequivocally yes.

Jeff Iorg: 01:32

Now I say it's yes because, first of all, of the example of Jesus. Jesus was friends with tax collectors and sinners, Matthew eleven nineteen, and other passages tell us this. Jesus reached out to people and developed friendships with them. And then when those people became his followers, he became friends with his disciples. John fifteen thirteen to 15 references this.

Jeff Iorg: 01:59

So Jesus not only developed friendships that were evangelistic, if you will, or focused on the community, tax collectors and sinners, but he sustained those friendships with his disciples when people became his followers. And as you read the story of Jesus, particularly as he intersected with his closest followers, you will see that Jesus did things like traveled with his friends and followers. He ate with them. You find them weeping together, laughing together. You see them going to things like weddings and other experiences together.

Jeff Iorg: 02:37

And so there's really no doubt in my mind that Jesus was friends with his followers and had very meaningful relationships with him. Now my answer is also yes. It's possible and even desirable to have friendships with church members for for some other reasons besides just the example of Jesus. For example, being a part of a church community or a ministry community is often a means to developing significant friendships. Many years ago, when I went to my first church as pastor, I met a man named Rick.

Jeff Iorg: 03:16

He was, on the pastor search committee that worked with me and ultimately agreed to recommend me to become the pastor. He was a deacon in the church and was very active in ministry in the congregation. He was just a little bit older than me, not much, but just a little bit. When we met through the search committee process and then in my early, months of service in the church with him serving as

Jeff Iorg: 03:41

a deacon and me as the new pastor, we really connected and became very quickly very dear friends.

Jeff Iorg: 03:53

Now that relationship developed to the point where he, at one point, came out of, his career and worked for our church for a little while and then went back into his career. So my interlude with him included a time when we actually even worked together, in a staff pastor relationship, but also as a deacon pastor relationship,

Jeff Iorg: 04:15

but always as friends. Now without going into, you know, a

Jeff Iorg: 04:20

lot of the detail of that, I've told you on the podcast and other times that my early years of ministry were challenging, mainly because I was growing through a lot of insecurities and struggles and difficulties in learning how to relate to people better and be more effective as in pastoral relationships and all of

Jeff Iorg: 04:37

that that was going on. Well, during those years,

Jeff Iorg: 04:41

Rick helped keep me sane. He was my friend. We spent a lot of time together. In fact, we had a game that we both enjoyed playing back in the day, kind of a strategy game. Won't go into all that, but we would often meet on Saturday afternoons, and play that game together both as a kind of a break from our busy week and also to kinda give us a mental break before we went into a busy Sunday.

Jeff Iorg: 05:07

That's the kind of friend he became to me. He also confronted me on a couple of occasions about some things that just frankly, needed to change in my life. And those were hard conversations, but good conversations because I know knew he loved me and we were he cared deeply for me, and it was evidenced in the friendship that we had developed together. And then after, I finished serving in that capacity in that church, went on to other things. He he remained my friend still.

Jeff Iorg: 05:34

He would come we we did some ministry activities together, mission projects, things like that. We continued our long distance relationship by phone and email, and I continued my relationship even with his family and his adult daughter and then other members of his family as he as we both aged. And then sadly, Rick passed away, and I I went back for his funeral. I'm just saying that it's possible because of ministry relationships to develop very deep friendships that in my case lasted forty years. So yes, Jesus modeled being friends with people that we work with in ministry relationships, but man, those of us who've been at this a while will tell you that it's possible that it's through those relationships you're gonna make the very best friendships you may ever experience.

Jeff Iorg: 06:32

Another reason why the answer is yes, you should develop friendships with church members and people in your ministry organizations is because sharing Christian ministry experiences often deepens our relationship really like nothing else. For example, going on mission trips together, living through conflicts together, experiencing victories together. These things bond us together, and the experience of going through these Christian experiences together deepens our friendships in profound ways. For example, the vice presidents that were with me when we moved to Gateway Seminary from Golden Gate to Gateway from Northern California to Southern California, when we went through that multiyear first ordeal and then fantastic blessing of seeing that whole experience take place. Listen, those experiences bonded me with the vice presidents as as friends in ways that really nothing else could have or has.

Jeff Iorg: 07:44

I think about two of those brothers, one retired now. He and I still call each other from time to time and just check-in with each other. How are we doing? How's our health? How's our families?

Jeff Iorg: 07:56

How's things, at church and in ministry to that we are now doing separately? We bonded because we went through shared Christian experiences together. I think about another one of those vice presidents, a younger VP that I still maintain a mentoring and encouraging relationship with, and we still have that bond of knowing what we went through together and what that took for us to get through that together and how it brought us together. So you should develop these kind of friendships because it you're going to go through things with people that will that will deepen your relational connection with them like really nothing else can. Mission trips, conflicts, victories, these kinds of things really cement our hearts together.

Jeff Iorg: 08:47

And as a part of this, depending on your background, your family constellation, your sense of connection with your normal or nuclear family, you may find that profound relationships develop out of your ministry organization relationships or out of your church relationships so that these relationships become like family to you and maybe even more than that in some ways. You know, this has certainly been our experience, for lots of different reasons. My children did not really know their grandparents very well. Some of them died, at an early age or were ill and not able to really interface or interact with our children. And so our children really grew up not knowing their biological grandparents that well.

Jeff Iorg: 09:40

But, we developed a relationship with a couple, Casey and Doris, who came into our lives when our children were small and really became surrogate grandparents to them, and through those relationships, into deep abiding friendships, not only with our children, but with Anne and I and with our, really, entire family. And as the years unfolded, some of the holiest moments of my life were being present when those dear friends passed away and being able to be a part of the memorial services for both of them. Those relationships came into our lives because I was a pastor and because we were a ministry family and because we connected with these dear Christians through our church family relationships, we were able to have these incredibly meaningful, profoundly meaningful relationships. So to start the podcast, we're simply ask asking and answering this question, is it both possible and desirable to have meaningful and close relationships, friendships, if you will, with church members or with people in your ministry organization that you're leading?

Jeff Iorg: 10:52

And the answer to that is yes. Jesus modeled it. Being part of

Jeff Iorg: 10:58

a church community means developing relationships, and sharing Christian experience deepens those relationships. And in fact, some of those relationships may turn into the most profound, meaningful relationships of your life. So, yes, develop these relationships.

Jeff Iorg: 11:18

Now, having said that, let

Jeff Iorg: 11:20

me talk about three limitations on these kinds of friendships that you have to keep in view if you want to manage them well. The first limitation is to remember, there's always the reality of some unequal aspect of the relationship or some disjointed or disconnected aspect of the relationship. Meaning this, you are always the pastor, they are always a member. You are always the president, they are always an employee. You are always in your role, whatever that may be, and they are always in their role, whatever that may be.

Jeff Iorg: 12:01

Now, again, that doesn't mean you can't relationship like I've been describing and it doesn't mean that those relationships may not develop into something very significant and profound even. But no matter what else happens, this reality doesn't change. You still have a role, and that role has some definition and implication on your relationship, and the other person has a similar role, which leads me to the second limitation, which is you have to handle information carefully in these kind of relationships. Now this is perhaps the place where these relationships can become troublesome. They they can trip you up, and they can become something really negative or counterproductive in ministry and in friendships,

Jeff Iorg: 12:57

handling information carefully.

Jeff Iorg: 13:03

As a pastor or as a leader, you're going to learn certain things about different people in your organization or certain or you're going to know certain things about situations that your organization is facing. And just because you have a friendship with someone, either a member or an employee, just because you have a really good friendship with them does not mean that you can share freely all the information you have or things you may know about the ministry or about the situation or about other individuals in your context.

Jeff Iorg: 13:41

This can be difficult. Learning to maintain the parameters, keep up the barriers, to have some

Jeff Iorg: 13:51

limitations on what you can actually talk about with a friend in a ministry organization or in a church. You have to know that there are some limits on information and how that information is shared or used or known, and you might make a serious mistake if you forget that the friendship that you have doesn't invalidate the leadership or professional responsibility you also have in the moment and for the organization and for the people who are sharing information with you in that context. You know, it's really easy to slip up on this. I mean, you're good friends with someone, you trust them, you're burdened about a problem or a situation or some information that you've learned, and

Jeff Iorg: 14:40

you unburden it to your friend, and

Jeff Iorg: 14:44

that becomes an inappropriate sharing of information that can come back to haunt you because it's in the wrong context with the wrong person. Handling information appropriately, maintaining those silos, if you will, of information management to make sure that you don't let friendship cloud your judgment on what can be shared, what can be discussed, or

Jeff Iorg: 15:09

what can be a part of the moment. Now the first limitation,

Jeff Iorg: 15:15

the reality of an inequality in the relationship that you never step out of the role that you have into being just friends. And second, the handling of information appropriately and making sure that you handle what you know and that you don't inappropriately share it with or involve other people in that information, especially if they're your friends, and the temptation in the moment to simply unburden yourself is pretty strong. But a third problem or limitation is the problem of too much time devoted

Jeff Iorg: 15:52

to too few people. Now

Jeff Iorg: 15:56

it's easy when you have a person that's a good friend in your ministry organization to find yourself continually having meals with them or going on events with them or taking trips with them. And quite honestly, you can run into a problem here if you find yourself talking about that all the time or posting about it on social media or in other places so that you create the impression that you're really consumed by and devoting a disproportionate amount of time investing in one or two or three really important relationships to the detriment of the many. Now, I'm not asking you to conceal anything. I'm asking you to be wise about what you talk about and publicize. If you have a regular weekly luncheon or coffee with a friend,

Jeff Iorg: 16:47

that's fine. Why do you

Jeff Iorg: 16:50

have to post about it though every time you do it? Because you're running the risk of creating resistance or creating a jealousy or creating frustration with people who say, well, he or she never has time for me, but they seem to every week have time for this person. So again, I'm not asking you to conceal anything. That wouldn't be appropriate. But I'm also asking,

Jeff Iorg: 17:12

why do you have to publicize every single aspect of relationship that you have? And as a part

Jeff Iorg: 17:21

of this, it is important to manage your time well and to make sure that while you have some priority time that you invest in a meaningful friendship or relationship, that you make sure that you're not investing a disproportionate amount of time in that, but that you're making sure that you still have time for all the other responsibilities and people that are part of your ministry organization. So while I strongly affirm that you establish these friendships and maintain them, you have to do so in the context of the inequality that always exists and the fact that you never truly step out of your role in those relationships, that you have to handle information wisely, discreetly, and carefully, and you have to make sure that you're not devoting too much time to any one relationship. And if you're devoting significant time to a relationship, that you're not publicizing that in a way that creates ill will, jealousy, difficulty for you with other people in your church or ministry organization.

Jeff Iorg: 18:26

Now having said all that, here

Jeff Iorg: 18:28

are some best practices to put into place on this issue of being friends with people in your church context or being friends with people that you work with in a ministry organization? Number one, I've already said it two or three different ways and two or three different times, I'm gonna say it one more time. First best practice, be friendly and be friends with church members. It's perfectly legitimate to do that. So that first best practice is be friendly and develop friendships.

Jeff Iorg: 18:58

It's an invaluable resource for you and an enriching part of ministry leadership to have an openness to and the development of these kind of relationships. Then second, second best practice is be careful with information. Be careful with information you share with friends, making sure that that information is shared on a level that's appropriate for the relationship. Sure. It's okay to share about your life and your family, to talk about your perspective and your struggles.

Jeff Iorg: 19:31

No problem with any

Jeff Iorg: 19:32

of that. Where you have

Jeff Iorg: 19:34

to draw the line, though, is sharing things about other people in your ministry context that were told to you in confidence or that you've come to learn as a part of your pastoral or leadership responsibility and not to violate that trust by indiscriminately talking about it with your, quote, friends.

Jeff Iorg: 19:53

Man, this is hard. Not because so many of you

Jeff Iorg: 19:56

are gossips or trying to go out and share information inappropriately. That's not the problem. What makes it difficult is the natural tendency we have as relationships deepen and as we become more and more transparent and vulnerable with people around us to simply overshare information in the moment. So be on guard about that and recognize that information management is very significant in maintaining this kind of ongoing friendship. And then third, I've mentioned this already, and that is be careful about how much publicity you give to any one relationship and how much time you spend talking about or magnifying that one relationship.

Jeff Iorg: 20:37

And of course, I've already mentioned the idea of not oversharing on social media or over publishing this relationship that you may have to someone.

Jeff Iorg: 20:46

But I would also caution you that you need to

Jeff Iorg: 20:49

be careful that this relationship doesn't bleed into every sermon illustration. It doesn't become a part of frequent conversations. That you keep it separated in a sense so that no one gets the impression that you're being dominated by nor are you devoting all of your attention to one or two relationships in your church or ministry organization. And then next, be wise. Be wise about the amount of time and the kind of time you invest in these relationships.

Jeff Iorg: 21:23

As I already mentioned, when I was, at particular point in pastoral ministry, I I, wisely set aside some time on a lot of Saturday afternoons to play a strategy game with a friend and just reorient my mind and get myself ready and relax for the next day. There's not anything wrong with doing that.

Jeff Iorg: 21:41

But that was on Saturday afternoons every week or so, not every day and certainly not even every week.

Jeff Iorg: 21:51

I realized I had much more time that I need to invest in many more people.

Jeff Iorg: 21:56

And to be specific, for

Jeff Iorg: 21:58

a couple of years, my wife and I decided to really invest ourselves much more intently in trying to build relationships in our congregation and help me to learn to enhance my skills in relationship development. And so we made a decision that we were going to open our home one night a week and invite three or four couples or families over for some light refreshments and, you know, maybe a simple, like, party game or something like that to just build more connectivity in our church. And I think over a couple of years, we had a couple of 100 people come to our house. Now, obviously, it wasn't a big church. We had some of them over more than once, but, you know, it wasn't unusual for us to have six, eight, ten, fifteen, 20 people if they brought their kids into our home one night a week, to try to build greater relationships and connectivity in our church family.

Jeff Iorg: 22:48

That's what I'm talking about when I say balance the time. You know, those relationships that I'm

Jeff Iorg: 22:52

just describing, those weren't in-depth relationships. They weren't what I would call deep friendships or even or even, ongoing friendships. They were more pastor to people connectivity moments, and inviting people into our home demonstrated a level of vulnerability and openness, to connect with people. But those were not the same things as developing real friendships with church members. Yes, I was doing that with a few people, as I already mentioned, but I was making sure that I had to balance in the time that I was allotting to these things.

Jeff Iorg: 23:29

This can be particularly hard on those of you that are in really hard ministry settings where you're dealing with people that are difficult or are critical or you're dealing with a lot of conflict in your context, man, it can be so easy in those moments to kind of pull into your shell and just say, I'm only gonna relate to a couple of different people and I'm gonna do that as much as possible. And then the rest of the people, I'm just gonna give the minimum amount of time because they're all full of just conflict and difficulty and trouble. Well, you gotta be careful about that because that is compounding the problem, not solving the problem of what to do about all these relational needs that people may have. And then finally, as you develop these kind of relationships, don't just think in terms of the people that you're relating to now, but think in terms of maintaining those relationships and even deepening them as you move on to other aspects of life. You know, some of the people that I have the most meaningful friendships with are people that were in my former ministry settings.

Jeff Iorg: 24:36

So for example, there's a couple, Rusty and Sheila. The very first meeting of our church in Oregon was in their living room. We bonded in those early years around the dream of planting a church together. They were awesome servants, awesome partners, awesome people. We became really, really good friends and supported each other in those early years of church planting, but then

Jeff Iorg: 25:06

I went on with my life and they went

Jeff Iorg: 25:08

on with theirs, except they've stayed in the church that we planted all these years. And so every time I'm back in Oregon and we're able to go to the church, we connect with them and we go back to the same place that we enjoy for lunch. After church, we'll meet up and just pick up where we left off. We might not see each other for months, maybe even a couple of years, but we pick back up with, you know, how are your children?

Jeff Iorg: 25:27

How are your grandchildren? What's happening in the church? What's happening in ministry? How's your health? These

Jeff Iorg: 25:33

relationships that we've nurtured over the years are a special kind of ministry friendship that we can have. So when you think about building friendships in your ministry organization, in your church, or in your organization where you're working, think about those for the long haul that maybe some of those relationships, while they might be meaningful while you're in them, may even be much more meaningful as the years go by, and you lose some of these challenges and limitations that I've already enumerated. For example, these folk that are in my life that were a part of previous ministry organizations, I'm not nearly as concerned about sharing information with them about the ministry organization or about the people they know because, frankly, they don't know any of the people I'm working with today. I'm also not as worried about being accused of spending too much time with them or letting them dominate my schedule or anything like that because, frankly, there's no possible way anyone in their context would even be concerned about that these days. I'm just not as concerned about some of those limitations or problems because it's a whole different dynamic.

Jeff Iorg: 26:35

So, yes, be friendly with church members. Yes, be careful with information. Yes. Be careful about over publicizing these relationships so that you create the impression that you're spending way too much time on too few people and not really getting around to relating to all the people that you have to connect with. Be sure in doing that that you are wise about your time allocation so that you are spending the time you need to spend with the various people that need to get some time with you in your context.

Jeff Iorg: 27:03

And then as you think about enriching your life with these friendships, don't dismiss the relationships that are in your former ministry settings, churches, or ministry organizations as they may carry forward with you into being some of the more meaningful relationships you have today to sustain you and keep you moving forward. Is it possible and is it desirable to maintain deep friendships, abiding friendships, meaningful friendships with people in your ministry context, either in your church that you're leading or the ministry organization where you're working? And the answer is yes. Jesus modeled it, church community facilitates it, sharing ministry experiences deep in it and sometimes these relationships become so profound that they become like or in some cases even closer than family. There are some challenges and limitations that go along with these relationships.

Jeff Iorg: 28:05

There are also some best practices you can put into place to strengthen your capacity in this area. Look, as a leader, you need friends. And as a ministry leader, it's only natural that you're going to have some of those relationships in, with, and among the people you're leading. Do this wisely and it will be a significant resource to keep you emotionally healthy and spiritually focused and moving forward relationally in ministry. Make friends in your ministry context as a part of your responsibility of leading.

Jeff Iorg: 28:44

Do it well as you lead on.